Recent Articles

Dell appears to be charging its customers almost a fiver to select power settings when it sells them a computer.

Conserve power for a fiver and, what, save the rainforest? My, what a bargain! (click to enlarge)

A reader wrote in to tip us off that Dell's online store was inviting people with more money than sense to pay its tech bods £4.55 ($7.64) to select an energy profile in settings before it boxes up a machine – in this case a desktop mini-tower.

We estimate this would take a maximum of a minute, meaning that Dell is charging at least £273 an hour to fiddle a configuration option. It's perhaps something to mention to a less tech-savvy pal or relative considering buying a Dell.

That hourly rate is even more expensive than the estimated £100 an hour the PC titan appeared to charge for installing Firefox on new computers. Dell got in trouble with the web browser's maker Mozilla after it was revealed that Dell was charging £16 for the installation of the foundation's free and open-source software.

According to this guide for Microsoft Windows 8 – which would have been installed on our reader's mini-tower – there are several methods for changing the Power Options settings... none of which would take more than five or six clicks. Dell's helpful tech bods will help you select from Energy Saver, Power Saver, Balanced or High Performance.

We have asked Dell for a response, but the tech titan has not yet replied. ®